When it comes to water, we are fed a daily diet of doom and gloom, of a looming crisis: wars of the future will be over water; nearly one-billion people lack access to clean water; river basins are closed so there is no more water to be allocated despite ever-growing demand; aquifers are overdrawn to such an extent that a global food crisis is just around the corner and major cities, such as Bangkok and Mexico, are sinking. And let us not forget about pollution or vector-borne diseases.

The challenges for sustainable water management are massive. Yet, as shown in this book, there are many positives to be drawn from the southern African experience. Despite abiding conditions of economic underdevelopment and social inequality, people rise to the challenge, oftentimes out of necessity and through self-help, but sometimes through creative coalitions operating at different scales - from the local to the global - and across issue areas - from transboundary governance to urban water supply.

This first volume in the Off-Centre series argues that we must learn to see water and the region differently if we are to meet present challenges and better prepare for an uncertain, climate-changing future.

Larry A. Swatuk is Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo, Canada; Extraordinary Professor at the Institute for Water Studies, University of Western Cape, South Africa; and Research Associate, Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC). Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, he was Associate Professor of Natural Resources Governance at the Okavango Research Institute, Maun, Botswana.

As population growth accelerates, researchers and professionals face challenges as they attempt to plan for the future. Urban planning is a significant component in addressing the key concerns as the world population moves towards the city and leaves the rural environment behind, yet there are many factors to consider for a well rounded community. The Handbook of Research on Social, Economic, and Environmental Sustainability in the Development of Smart Cities brings together the necessary research and interdisciplinary discussion to address dilemmas created by population growth and the expansion of urban environments. This publication is an essential reference source for researchers, academicians, investors, and practitioners interested in the urban planning and technological advancements necessary for the creation of smart cities.

Maintaining and preserving the environment is a crucial consideration in an era where climate change and rising sea levels are common knowledge. It is important for researchers and developers alike to explore potential solutions for a steadily warming world. The Handbook of Research on Uncovering New Methods for Ecosystem Management through Bioremediation focuses on the agricultural industry's impact on climate change, presenting critical concerns as well as innovations and contemporary research toward the solutions sorely needed by the global economy. With a primary consideration of bioremediation as an effective environmental management tool, this handbook provides insight to researchers, agricultural specialists, biologists, chemists, environmental engineers, and policymakers. Covering a broad range of topics such as pollution, microbial ligninolysis, environmental restoration, ecosystem management, and more, the chapters in this handbook are written by specialists and experts in their respective fields, offering a comprehensive compendium of current research in the industry.

Each monograph is written by leading experts in their field and examines the relationship and contributions of engineering to the topic of study. As a series, TSL addresses a long-awaited niche in engineering publishing, providing in-depth discussions of environmental significance set within a technology, economic, and policy context.

Due to an ever-decreasing supply in raw materials and stringent constraints on conventional energy sources, demand for lightweight, efficient and low cost structures has become crucially important in modern engineering design. This requires engineers to search for optimal and robust design options to address design problems that are often large in scale and highly nonlinear, making finding solutions challenging. In the past two decades, metaheuristic algorithms have shown promising power, efficiency and versatility in solving these difficult optimization problems. This book examines the latest developments of metaheuristics and their applications in water, geotechnical and transport engineering offering practical case studies as examples to demonstrate real world applications. Topics cover a range of areas within engineering, including reviews of optimization algorithms, artificial intelligence, cuckoo search, genetic programming, neural networks, multivariate adaptive regression, swarm intelligence, genetic algorithms, ant colony optimization, evolutionary multiobjective optimization with diverse applications in engineering such as behavior of materials, geotechnical design, flood control, water distribution and signal networks. This book can serve as a supplementary text for design courses and computation in engineering as well as a reference for researchers and engineers in metaheursitics, optimization in civil engineering and computational intelligence.

In the current era of globalisation, national governments are increasingly exposed to international influences which can present many new constraints and opportunities for domestic environmental policies. This comprehensive Handbook pushes the frontiers of theoretical and empirical knowledge, and provides a state-of-the-art examination of the critical effects of globalisation on environmental governance. Following a comprehensive introduction by the editors, the expert contributors analyse key concepts and recent developments in themes such as national regimes, types of environmental goods, trade rules and environmental policies, eco-innovation policy, government-business cooperation, the role of citizen-consumers in environmental politics, and governance in developing countries. They also present various societal perspectives, including the role of businesses and non-governmental organisations. Eight original case studies address global influences on domestic environmental policies and government participation in international and supranational fora. The Handbook concludes with innovative and challenging views on the future role of national governments in global environmental governance. Including contributions from leading authorities in academia, government, and business, this comprehensive new Handbook provides an insightful overview of the powerful effect of globalisation on national environmental policy. The depth and scope of the work will ensure a broad and varied readership, including academics, students, and policymakers in the fields of governance, environmental politics and law, international relations, and political science.

Encompassing papers form the 2019 Water and Society Conference, this book is a collection of latest trans-disciplinary research on issues related to the nature of water, and its use and exploitation by society. This book demonstrates the need to bridge the gap between specialists in physical sciences, biology, environmental sciences and health. Over the centuries, civilisations have relied on the availability of clean and inexpensive water. This can no longer be taken for granted as the need for water continues to increase due to the pressure from growing global population demanding higher living standards. Agriculture and industry, major users of water, are at the same time those that contribute to its contamination. Water distribution networks in urban areas, as well as soiled water collection systems, present serious problems in response to a growing population as well as the need to maintain ageing infrastructures. Many technologically feasible solutions, such as desalination or pumping systems are energy demanding but, as costs rise, the techniques currently developed may need to be re-assessed. The research contained in this book addresses the interaction between water and energy systems. The socio-political implications of a world short of clean, easily available water are enormous. It will lead to realignments in international politics and the emergence of new centres of power in the world. The following list covers some of the subjects included in this book: Water resources management; Agribusiness; Water as a human right; Water quality; Water resources contamination; Sanitation and health; Water and disaster management; Policy and legislation; Future water demands; Irrigation and water management; Management of catchments; Groundwater management and conservation.